Rescue of Joshua Glover, a Runaway Slave

from Leading Events of Wisconsin Historyby Henry E. Legler 1898

The Glover episode became a celebrated case elsewhere than
in Wisconsin; here it stirred public excitement to fever pitch and profoundly affected
the course of future events in politics. Joshua Glover was
a runaway slave, who sought asylum in Racine in the early
part of the year 1854. Racine was a way station on the route
of the underground railway, and the abolition sentiment had made considerable headway
among its people. The colored slave found employment in a mill. Learning his whereabouts,
the Missouri master of the slave, one B. S. Garland, procured
a process in the United States District court and proceeded to Glover's
shanty in company with two deputy United States marshals. Glover
was in his little shanty engaged in playing cards when his master and the marshals surprised
him by their appearance. He jumped up, and as he resisted arrest, one of the deputies
knocked him down with a club and leveled a pistol at his head, while the others handcuffed
him. In the words of Sherman M. Booth, whose subsequent
connection with the case gave him national notoriety, the slave "was knocked down
and handcuffed, dumped mangled and bleeding into a democrat wagon, and with a marshal's
foot on his neck taken to Milwaukee and thrust into the county
jail."

Pursuit having been anticipated, the officers made their way to Milwaukee by a circuitous
route. The alarm had been given, however, and it was soon learned that a negro accused
of fleeing from his slave pen had been incarcerated in the jail at Milwaukee. When a
hundred determined men landed by boat from Racine, formed in line and marched toward
the jail, public excitement in Milwaukee grew intense. Great crowds congregated about
the county jail and gathered in the grounds adjacent to the courthouse. There a great
indignation meeting was held that ended in the storming of the jail and the rescue of
Glover. Sherman M. Booth, editor of The Free Democrat,
who took a leading part in the courthouse meeting, according to popular account of the
affair rode up and down the streets on a white horse summoning the people to gather,
shouting the rallying cry: "Freemen, to the rescue!" Mr. Booth, in a recent
address, denied many of the statements that have remained unchallenged for more than
forty years. He said that he did not shout "Freemen, to the rescue!" and that
he never advised the forcible rescue of Glover. What he did say was: "All freemen
who are opposed to being made slaves or slave-catchers turn out to a meeting in the
courthouse square at 2 o'clock!" Ringing resolutions were adopted insisting on
the slave's right to a writ of habeas corpus and a trial by jury. A local judge issued
such a writ, but the refusal of the federal officers to recognize its validity led to
the battering in of the jail doors.

Glover's rescue gave rise to many legal complications and a great deal of litigation. The
sheriff of Racine county arrested the slave-master and those who had aided in the capture
of the fugitive, on a charge of assault. Garland obtained his release on a writ of habeas corpus.
In the meantime the underground railway had conveyed the slave to Canada. Booth was arrested and a
grand jury found a bill of indictment against him and two others. He appealed to the Supreme
court for a writ of habeas corpus. The learned judges read long opinions declaring the
Fugitive Slave law of 1850 unconstitutional.

"They will never consent," Judge Smith declared,
in referring to the right of the states in the enforcement of the law, "that a slave-owner,
his agent, or an officer of the United States, armed with process to arrest a fugitive
from service, is clothed with entire immunity from state authority; to commit whatever
crime or outrage against the laws of the state; that their own high prerogative writ of
habeas corpus shall be annulled, their authority defied, their officers resisted, the
process of their own courts contemned, their territory invaded by federal force, the houses
of their citizens searched, the sanctuary or their homes invaded, their streets and public
places made the scenes of tumultuous and armed violence, and state sovereignty succumb--paralyzed
and aghast--before the process of an officer unknown to the constitution and irresponsible
to its sanctions. At least, such shall not become the degradation of Wisconsin, without
meeting as stern remonstrance and resistance as I may be able to interpose, so long as
her people impose upon me the duty of guarding their rights and liberties, and maintaining
the dignity and sovereignty of their state."

In his speech before the United States court commissioner, Winfield
Smith, Booth defended himself vigorously. He denied
that he had counseled or aided in the escape of the runaway slave, but he made no secret
of his sympathy with the feelings of the mob that forced the jail.

"I am frank to say," he declared with emphasis--"and the prosecution
may make the most of it--that I sympathize with the rescuers of Glover
and rejoice at his escape. I rejoice that, in the first attempt of the slave-hunters
to convert our jail into a slave-pen and our citizens into slave-catchers, they have
signally failed, and that it has been decided by the spontaneous uprising and sovereign
voice of the people, that no human being can be dragged into bondage from Milwaukee.
And I am bold to say that, rather than have the great constitutional rights and safeguards
of the people--the writ of habeas corpus and the right of trial by jury--stricken down
by this fugitive law, I would prefer to see every federal officer in Wisconsin hanged
on a gallows fifty cubits higher than Haman's."

Before the Supreme court, Byron Paine made an argument in
behalf of Booth that attracted attention all over the country.
It was printed in pamphlet form and circulated on the streets of Boston
by the thousands. Charles Sumner and Wendell
Phillips wrote the author letters of hearty approval and commended his force of
logic and able presentation of argument. This pamphlet is now excessively rare; but half
a dozen copies are now known to exist.

Booth was discharged from imprisonment by the Supreme court
on the ground of irregularities in the warrant. This did not end the case. The United
States Supreme court reversed the action of the state court. Booth
and John Rycraft were tried in January, 1855, for violation
of the act and were found guilty. The sentences imposed were:

Sherman M. Booth--Imprisonment in the county jail one month,
a fine of $1,000 and the costs of prosecution.

John Rycraft--Imprisonment for ten days; fine of $200 without
costs.

The owner of the rescued slave also brought suit against Booth
for the value of Glover and obtained judgment in the United
States District court for $1,000, representing the value of a negro slave as fixed by
the act of congress passed in 1850. It is said that the litigation in which Booth became
entangled as the result of the Glover episode ruined him
financially. The Glover episode and attendant circumstances
were potent factors in creating an abolition sentiment in Wisconsin. In 1857 the legislature
enacted a law "to prevent kidnaping," its purpose being to prevent the capture
of fugitive slaves seeking asylum in this state.